South India Will Be Biggest Beneficiary: Piyush Goyal

Observing that lack of adequate transmission capacity was the biggest problem in South India, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal today said that his ministry's recent announcement to give support to gas-based plants would benefit the region. 

CHENNAI: Observing that lack of adequate transmission capacity was the biggest problem in South India, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal today said that his ministry's recent announcement to give support to gas-based plants would benefit the region.    

"The biggest problem in South India is lack of adequate transmission capacity. Obviously, transmission cannot be done overnight. It is a long drawn process. As soon as I became Minister, I realised that transmission is in short supply. I have awarded Rs 26,000 crore contract to Power Grid Corporation which will offer 6,000 MW of power transmission to South India," Goyal told reporters here.    

"We had only last Wednesday announced the policy to give support to gas-based plants a lot of which are in South India, which will help these plants to generate cheaper power and reduce the shortage in South India. South India will be the biggest beneficiary of that scale," he said.    

Asked how was the response from the state governments to gas-based plants, he said, "We are receiving full cooperation from all the states. Tamil Nadu government has supported all the efforts of the Central government and we are working together with all the 30 states without differentiating one state from the other."            

Goyal, who also handles Coal portfolio, denied that the Vallur Power Plant near Chennai was facing coal shortage.   

 "Right now there is no coal shortage in any plant in the country. We have surplus coal on the contrary," he said.

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